


old-fashioned

by saltpans



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: Awkward Flirting, Canon Compliant, Canon Continuation, Courtship, Dancing, F/M, Flower Language, Gardening, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Magic, Slow Burn, Wizarding Traditions
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-19
Updated: 2017-04-27
Packaged: 2018-10-20 20:12:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 14,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10669950
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saltpans/pseuds/saltpans
Summary: Credence turns the carnation over in his hands, confused.  "Did you leave this for me?"  he asks.  This is the fifth flower he's found in as many days.  Credence would have a whole bouquet of them now, if he cared to keep them, but pollen makes him sneeze."No," says Newt.  "That came in with the post this morning." He points, and Credence spies an elegant barn owl perched in the Bowtruckle tree, head under its wing.Credence sighs.  "What does it mean?""It means," Newt says, deeply amused, like he doesn't write Tina terrible poetry in between the lines of his manuscript, "that you have an admirer."





	1. PART ONE

**Author's Note:**

> Listen. This fic is 100% the result of my girlfriend introducing me to the concept of flower language. It's like, 25,000 words, and it's because it's been like a Victorian romcom in my house for three weeks. There are flowers everywhere. We're both allergic to pollen. We're dying. 
> 
> Who doesn't love traditional courtship?

PART I 

 

Credence has always hated New York in the spring, just a little.  Everything's wet and muddy.  The gutters swell up with snowmelt and the Hudson spills over its banks, its oily dark water filling basements and the cracks between cobblestones and Credence's shoes.   

At least in August the water's warmer.   

It's only just March, now, and winter's grip is loosening.  All the February snow has melted, run off into the streets, and found a new home in Credence's shoes.  He hisses at the cold, eyeing the wet pavement distrustfully.  

Newt is, of course, already halfway across the street.  (Though at this time of year, _street_ isn't the right word.  It's more like _small lake,_ as muddy water from the gutters has spilled over and pooled in the middle of the street, where the pavement is bowed by the weight of millions of people walking on top of it. Credence is pretty sure he sees a fish or two flitting between the half-submerged streetlights.)  

Not much seems to bother Newt.  He's perfectly fine with being cold and wet.  Two weeks ago, Credence caught Newt stuffing snow in his pockets to bring down to Dougal the demiguise, who apparently prefers the real stuff to the snow Newt can conjure down in his case.   

_Or,_ Credence thinks, as he takes another tentative step into the street and feels icy water nip at his ankles, _Newt's boots don't leak._  

Credence's shoes have holes in them.  Only a few, and he's patched them up as best as he can, but until he can figure out how to use _Reparo_ without breaking something, these are the only pair Credence has.   

If he said something, Newt would probably buy him a new pair.  He's doing quite well; his book came out at the end of January, not too long after he agreed to take Credence on as an assistant, and has already sold out of print once.  Credence could even buy a pair himself. Newt pays him a good wage, but he pays Credence with a fistful of heavy golden coins every other week, and Credence might not know much about the Wizarding world yet but he knows if he shows up at the shabby cobbler's Ma used to bring him to and tries to pay for boots with solid gold, Credence is going to end up arrested.  

He does not want to be arrested.   

Credence and his siblings have all been chased off street corners by the police before, but none of them were ever actually taken in.  Ma had been very clear; anybody who went to jail would be left there, and jails were dens of wickedness and sin.   

Credence much prefers Newt's case.  There's a cot for him in Newt's workroom, and if he lies very still the Occamies will curl up behind Credence's knees, warm and trilling.   

Credence sighs, tells himself to remember to ask Newt how to exchange the big golden coins for _real_ money, and hurries across the drowned street.  By the time he gets to the sidewalk, his feet are soaked through and his pants are wet halfway up his shins.  Newt, who's paused to wait for him, blinks at Credence through a mess of sopping curls. 

"Are you alright?" He asks, for the sixth time since they stepped off the boat.   

Credence pushes down the urge to sigh.  "Yes," he says, and means it.  He's not particularly _thrilled_ to be back in New York. Credence was born here, raised here, but he also destroyed a fistful of buildings and tried to turn several other New Yorkers into smears of blood on the sidewalk, so.  He has mixed memories, at best.  He's not thrilled, but he's not paralyzed either.   

Ma is dead.  Grindelwald, the man who pretended to be Credence's friend, is in prison half a world away.  If nobody bothers Credence, Credence doesn't intend to bother anybody.  Newt promised that MACUSA, the American magical government, would leave him alone.   

(Newt apparently wrote to one of his old professors in Scotland, and the professor wrote to MACUSA.  Newt's being very closed-mouthed about what that letter _said,_ but Credence is going to guess, by the fact that he's allowed back in America and wasn't immediately carted off to jail when he stepped off the boat, that Newt’s professor threatened the President of the Magical Congress of the United States of America.  

Thinking this makes Credence's head hurt, and makes his shoulders feel tight and awful, like something is determined to claw its way free out of the cage of his bones.  The last time he felt like _that_ he leveled a subway tunnel, so Credence is determined not to think about it.)  

Newt doesn't look particularly convinced.  Credence tries to smile at him, crookedly.  Usually he _is_ fine.  Better than fine, even.  He's well-fed, alive, and he has a job.  Credence hardly recognizes himself in the mirror.   

Newt found Credence under a bridge in Brooklyn, no more than a scrap of shadow clinging to life.  The Aurors had tried very hard to kill Credence, and they'd almost done it.  But Obscurials are, according to Newt, very difficult to kill.  Usually they self-destruct when they're young.  Credence _didn't,_ so Credence is, as far as Newt can tell, unkillable.   

That doesn't mean that Credence wants to get blasted by a bunch of spells, though.   

_That's not going to happen,_ he tells himself.  Newt won't let it.  Newt found him, took him in.  He took Credence across the sea, gave him a job, showed him all the wonderful magical creatures that lived in his case, how to care for them, how to help them.  He's even been teaching Credence magic when he can, though Credence isn't very good at it.   

"Alright," Newt says slowly, watching Credence out of the corner of his eye.  "We're almost there.  I need to stop into MACUSA and speak to President Picquery for a moment.  You don't have to come," he adds hastily, catching the look of alarm that must flash across Credence's face. "In fact I think all parties would rather prefer if you didn't.  Tina's going to come meet you.  She wants to show you around.  Is that alright?" 

Credence doesn't remember much about Tina Goldstein.  He remembers—details.  Tina's hand on his elbow, Ma on the ground, Tina speaking to him from the end of a very long, very dark tunnel.  But she wrote to him once, after Newt took Credence to London.  She'd asked him how he was settling in as Newt's assistant, and if he'd like to write to her sometime.   

Credence, after a few days of deliberation—what did Tina want from him?  Why hadn't she been scared of him?  Why was she, of all the people who'd seen what Credence's mother had done to him, the only one who'd stood up for him? —had written her back.   

He and Tina have exchanged a whole handful of letters by now.  Credence isn't sure that sending the post across the Atlantic Ocean by owl is efficient, but in the months since he and Tina have talked about everything under the sun.   

Credence keeps all her letters in a tiny rucksack underneath his cot, sealed up in a tin that not even the Niffler can pry open.  He rereads them every once and a while, when he wants to remind himself that this isn't a dream.   

"That's fine," Credence says, and manages a real smile this time.  Newt trusts Tina and Credence trusts Newt, so it'll be perfectly safe to wander around MACUSA with Tina.  Anything is better than having to sit in a room with MACUSA's President—Credence does remember _her,_ the heat of her spells, the light flashing off of her headdress, so sharp and bright Credence had felt it like a wound.   

He would rather spend an afternoon deworming the moon calves than walk into an enclosed space with President Picquery.   

Newt nods, apologetic.  "It'll be over soon," he promises.   

Credence shrugs, then hesitates.  "Will they—will they let me keep my wand?" 

Credence had used his first week of pay to buy a wand in London.  Newt had taken him to a rickety little shop in Diagon Alley—which had been a riot of color and noise and magic so thick in the air Credence could touch it, and he hadn't been able to stop smiling—and an old man named Ollivander had measured Credence's arms and fingers and the space between his nostrils, and had given Credence a wand.  

He'd given Credence several wands.  None of them had worked until the last.  When Credence had waved it, inky birds burst from the end and flew around his head.   

"Willow," Ollivander had said, watching Credence with pale eyes.  "And phoenix feather.  An unusual combination."   

Credence loves his wand.  He hasn't been able to make it conjure up those birds again, or do much of anything, but it almost hums in his hands whenever he holds it, and it's warm against his hip, where he keeps it tucked into the waistband of his pants.   

Newt shakes his head.  "No," he says.  "They shouldn't, anyway.  I was very careful with the paperwork, this time."   

Credence allows himself to relax.  Ahead of them, a great white building rises up against a flat grey sky.  Woolworth, if Credence remembers the layout of the city right.  Before he'd walked past it without bothering to look up, but now he can—he can _feel_ it, almost.  He can feel it humming and crackling, magic sparkling in the windows like tiny fireworks.   

Credence feels like he was living with his eyes closed, before.  There's magic _everywhere._ He just didn't look for it.   

Newt takes them right up to the door, says something to the doorman, and looks askance at Credence.  Credence makes himself stand up taller.  He's not afraid.  He's not.  He doesn't have any reason to be.  And really, _they_ should be afraid of _him._ The thought is comforting, and Credence determinedly doesn't flinch or burst into a cloud of snarling shadows as he steps through the door.  A curious sensation breaks out over his skin, electric, buzzing, and then— 

And then he's inside, half a step behind Newt, looking up at the heart of the Wizarding world.  

Credence hardly knows what to look at first.   

The ceilings soar up and up and up, draped with golden, shimmering eagles and flecked with clouds.  There are great bronze and brass statues that twitch and preen, memos that soar through the air shaped like owls and aero planes.  Hundreds and hundreds of witches and wizards, some in suits and some in robes, fixing their clothes and lifting their cups with a twitch of a wand or a hand.   

And none of them, not even the house elves, bother looking at Credence.   

It's electrifying.  He looks different than he did in December, of course; his hair is longer, a little curly, and his face is fuller, his clothes less shabby, but none of them notice him.  It's like Credence belongs here.  

Dizzying happiness bubbles up in Credence's chest before he can catch it.  It's a bright, fierce kind of thing, and he's smiling before he can stop himself, tilting his head back to try and take it all in.   

_Magic,_ he thinks.  _This is magic._  

Newt catches his expression and grins too, pleased.  "Americans," he says, sounding mostly fond.  "Your lot likes to pretend that you're all grey and gloom, but really you're just as flashy as we are."   

Everybody in this room can turn teacups into birds and hold fireworks in their hands.  Credence can't blame them for being _flashy_.  He wants to reach out and touch the bronze statues, to catch one of the memos as it wings from office to office.  Credence is pretty sure that this is real, that it's happening, but— 

"Ah," says Newt, interrupting Credence's train of thought.  "There's Tina."  

Credence craned his head, and spotted Tina Goldstein making her way down the stairs towards them, fidgeting with her hands.  She's shorter than Credence remembers.  In his hazy, half-Obliviated memory, Tina had towered over Mary Lou Barebone.  She'd towered over Credence, too, but it had been a safe sort of towering, like a tall tree shielding saplings from a thunderstorm.   

Credence remembers more about the night in the subway.  Getting blown up confused things in his head a little—which is perfectly understandable, if you ask Credence—but he has an image of Tina beneath him, hands up, taller than Newt, taller than Grindelwald.  She had tried to talk to him.   

Tina catches sight of Newt and Credence across the crowded atrium, and stops.  Her eyes widen.  Shyly, she raises a hand and waves.  

Credence decides there's nothing to do but wave back.   

When he waves, Tina's whole face lights up.  She hops down the last few steps and comes across the room to meet them, smiling hopefully.   

Newt beams down at her with open affection.  "Tina," he says.  Both of them look like they want to embrace, but aren't sure how to go about it.   

_Oh,_ Credence thinks, looking between Newt and Tina.  _It's like that._ Credence is very good at minding his own business.  He's noticed that Newt keeps a picture of Tina in his workshop—one that _moves,_ and waves at Credence whenever he walks by—right next to a picture of a beautiful, sad-looking woman Credence has never learned the name of.  Newt looks at the pictures when he thinks no one is watching him.   

_Moonstruck,_ Credence thinks the expression on Newt's face is called.   

He resists the urge to roll his eyes.   

Newt and Tina remember that Credence is there at the same time, looking away from each other and blushing fiercely.   

"Credence," Newt says, clearing his throat.  "I'd like to properly introduce Miss Tina Goldstein, Auror and friend."  

"We've met," Tina says, sticking her hand out.  She's nervous again.  Credence can tell by the way she's fidgeting, twisting the edges of her blouse with her other hand.  "And it's _Senior_ Auror now, actually."  

"It's nice to meet you," Credence tells her, taking her hand.  He resists the urge to fidget, too.  "Again, I mean," he adds.   

Tina's smile loses some of its nervous edge.   

"Senior Auror?"  Newt asks.  "Congratulations, then.  I thought you were still, er, on less than friendly terms with the President."  

"I am," Tina says, wry.  "But half the department's been fired, and I'm the only one left with enough experience.  President Picquery's not happy with me, but she'd rather promote me than Andrews."  

Credence knows that _Aurors_ are like policemen.  He doesn't like policemen as a rule, but Tina's alright, so maybe the Aurors aren't all bad.   

"Fired?"  he asks, curious.   

Tina blinks up at him.  "Yes," she says.  "With the whole mess with Grindelwald, well, the President thinks that half the department was either in on it or is too incompetent to continue working for MACUSA." 

_The whole mess with_ _Grindelwald_ _._ Credence nods.  "Well, congratulations," he offers, and Tina beams at him again.   

"I just need to run in and talk with President Picquery for a moment," Newt says.  "I assume she's going to give me boundaries, a book of regulations, and a few veiled threats as to what will happen should I break any of them."  

Tina arches an eyebrow.  "Does the President threaten you often?" 

"Usually just by letter," Newt says, cheerful.  "Never in person.  I’d rather face a Hungarian Horntail, to be honest, but hopefully the President won't try and have me killed within her own walls."  

"No," Tina agrees, and Credence can't tell if she's joking or not.  "She prefers to wait until you're out in the country before sending the Hit Wizards after you. A joke," she adds hastily, catching Credence's expression.  "The President of MACUSA is not going to have you assassinated."   

The President of MACUSA _did_ try and have Credence assassinated.  He remembers that part very well.  He'd been stuck as a shadow for three weeks.  When he'd been able to pull himself back together, he'd slept for another week and had been sick for two more after that.   

That's probably not something Tina needs reminded about, though, so Credence just shrugs and blinks at Newt.  If Newt's not worried, Credence won't be either.   

"I'll catch up with you both in a few minutes," Newt promises, and passes his case off to Credence.  He winks.  "Best not to antagonize the President, I think." And then he's off, bounding up the gleaming stairs and disappearing among the crowd.   

"I never know when to take him seriously or not," Credence tells Tina, shifting the case's weight so that it sits evenly in his grip.  "But most people are more concerned about getting killed or arrested, aren't they?" 

"Yes," Tina says, watching Newt disappear.  "But I don't think Newt is like most people, do you?" 

That is very true.  Newt's not like anyone Credence has ever met.  Neither's Tina. Credence is getting used to the way they surprise him.  He nods, and offers Tina his elbow.  "How long have you worked here?" He asks.   

Tina takes his elbow.  "Ten years," she says.  "I started right after Ilvermorny.  You're supposed to take a year between seventh year and Auror training, but Queenie was still in school and travelling without her would have been boring."   

"You've always worked at the New York office?"   

Newt had explained that unlike the Ministry of Magic, MACUSA was spread out across the entire country.   

"Always," Tina says, grinning.  "I wouldn't do well out in the country.  I get bored too easily.  Here, there's always something happening."  Tina takes Credence up the stairs so they can look out over the bustling crowd.  Everywhere Credence looks there are moving statues, laughing paintings, waving pictures.  A mousy-haired man goes running past, followed by a flock of paperwork.  A group of young witches giggle over a glossy magazine, candlelight fairies glittering in their hair.   

High above them a cloud shifts, revealing a great brassy clock.  When Credence looks closer, he sees that it's not a clock at all; instead of letters or numbers it has states of emergency written around its face.  Both of its hands are resting on yellow.   

"That's the Salem Clock," Tina explains, following Credence's eyes.  "It keeps track of how well-hidden the Wizarding community is.  The closer the hands get to the top, the more aware No-Majs are of us.  It's been on yellow all week.  Some idiot in Queens drank an expired potion and turned himself into an alligator.  We've been trying to get him out of the sewers since Monday."  

"Can you turn him back into a man?"  Credence asks, morbidly curious.  Some of the books he's been reading aren't shy about the horrible things that can happen is magic is misused.  Turning into an alligator seems almost mild compared to some of the illustrations in those books.   

"We think so," Tina says.  "The problem is that it's not a Transfiguration, so it's a little harder than just undoing a spell—is Newt teaching you spell theory?  A practical education's good, but without theory—" 

They continue like that for a while, wandering around, asking each other questions.  Tina wants to know about the magic Credence is learning, what Britain's like, if he's been to Hogwarts yet.  In turn Credence learns about MACUSA, its departments, its history, how it works.  He learns that all the memos used to be paper mice, but that cats kept eating them.  He learns that there are four eagles in Woolworth carved out of solid gold, enchanted to scream if they see a No-Maj in the building.   

Tina's in the middle of telling him about a curse laid on MACUSA by Morgana Bishop-Malfoy back in 1810, when Woolworth was just a muddy street corner, when Credence sees Grindelwald.   

Credence's whole body locks up.  Grindelwald is across the crowded floor, leaning over someone's desk, talking to a thin man, his face turned away, but Credence knows him.  He knows the line of Grindelwald's shoulders, the shape of his jaw; he _knows_ him, and fury and panic bubble up in his chest.  

"Tina," he hisses, intending to pull her away, to get her behind him.  His hands are shaking and he can feel darkness spilling out from the middle of his gut, darkening his veins.  "Tina, get behind me, it's _Grindelwald_ _._ "  

A proper wizard would reach for his wand.  Credence doesn't need one.  He'll tear Grindelwald apart right here.  He can aim himself, now.  He can rip Grindelwald to pieces, like Grindelwald did to Credence.  He can make sure Grindelwald never hurts anyone again.   

"Grindel—?  No!"  Tina says, sharply, and tugs at Credence's arm.  He's aware that he's growling, softly, and that the world has gone blurry and cracked at the edges.  Rage howls inside of him, battering against his ribs, his skin, his shape.   

"That's not Grindelwald," Tina says, hauling Credence back.  "That's not him, Credence.  That's Percival Graves.  Grindelwald stole his face.  He's a _friend._ "  

It's that word, _friend,_ that makes Credence stop.  He likes Tina.  He trusts her.  And she calls this man a friend, so Credence forces the snarling black anger down, and looks again.    

And now that Credence looks, _really_ looks, the man does look a bit different than Grindelwald.  HIs hair is shorter and shot through with silver.  He's thinner and the collar of his shirt is open, the top two or three buttons undone.  There's no tie in sight.   

Grindelwald always looked perfect.  Credence used to worry about cutting himself on the creases of his clothes.   

This man, this Graves, has the same face, the same hands, but now that Credence is looking for it, it's like his edges are blurred.   

Tina touches Credence's elbow, gently.  "We found him trapped inside a flask in Grindelwald's pocket," she explains.  "Grindelwald was using a potion to look like Mr. Graves, and he needed to keep Mr. Graves alive to keep up the disguise."  

Credence watches the man explain something to his companion, gesturing with his hands to emphasize his point.  Awful anger is still swarming in Credence's belly.  He can feel hot fury crawling up his wrists, his blood blackening in his veins.   

"He's a good man," Tina says.  Something in her tone makes Credence jerk around.  The rage dies in his chest.  Tina's face is fierce.  "He's not Grindelwald," she adds, again. 

Credence forces himself to calm down, bundling the buzzing darkness back up beneath his ribs. "Alright," he says.      

"The President vetted him hers—wait, really?"  Tina cuts herself off, looking between Credence and the real Mr. Graves, who's now punctuating every word he says with a flick of his fingers.  "You believe me?" 

"Not really," Credence says, honestly.  A potion that can make one person look like another isn't the strangest thing Credence has ever heard of.  Credence can turn into a cloud of sharp shadows and he's holding an entire zoo in his hand like he'd carry a stack of pamphlets.  "But I don't believe half of what Newt tells me, and he's almost always right."  

Credence risks another glance at the real Mr. Graves.  The man doesn't notice.  "What does he—does he work here?  Is that why Grindelwald stole his face?"   

Tina nods.  "Mr. Graves used to be the Director of Magical Security," she explains.  "He gave that up after we found him—you could hear him and the President yelling at each other from the basement—and came back to run the Auror department. He's the one who's been firing everybody."  

"But he promoted you?" 

"He did," says Tina.  She smiles crookedly.  "After what I—after what happened with your mother in the church, I wasn't allowed to be an Auror anymore.  Grindelwald's the one who fired me.  Mr. Graves says that's the best character reference he could ask for, and hired me back on."  

"Getting fired by Grindelwald was a good character reference?"   

Tina shrugs.  "Mr. Graves is a bit, um, eccentric." She softens again.  "I've known Mr. Graves for years," she says.  "He's stubborn, and impatient, and not particularly _nice,_ but he's a good man.  He's not Grindelwald.  He won't hurt you."  

Credence almost says that nobody can hurt him, not anymore, but he'd said something similar to Newt once and Newt had given him a strange, troubled look, and Credence doesn't want to see that from Tina.  So he takes a deep breath, forces it out between his teeth, between the hungry spaces in between his ribs, and pushes the Obscurus down.  Darkness leeches out of his hands.  The world sharpens again.   

"Alright," he repeats, and gives Tina a crooked smile.   

She smiles back, clearly relieved, and it's only then that Credence notices she has her other hand wrapped, white-knuckled, around her wand.  His stomach jolts.   

_Was she going to hex me?_ he thinks.  _Or Mr. Graves?_  

He's saved from having to ask that question by Newt, who reappears looking whole and happy and only a little soot-singed.  "There you are," he says, hand out for his case.  "Ready to go, then?" 

Credence nods.   

"Don't forget about dinner tonight," Tina says, letting go of Credence's elbow.  "Queenie's cooking, and she'll be crushed if you forget.  There's going to be, um, special desert, too."   

Newt perks up at that, a look Credence doesn't quite understand passing between him and Tina.  Credence resists the urge to roll his eyes.  _Special desert better not mean what I think it means,_ he thinks to himself, and turns to go.  

Across the crowd, Percival Graves looks up.  His eyes are dark and depthless and the force of his gaze rolls over Credence like a wave.  Credence's breath catches.  His shoulders lock up.  There are probably half a hundred people between Graves and Credence, but there might as well be none at all.  

_He's not_ _Grindelwald_ _,_ Credence tells himself, and looks away sharply.  He hopes that Tina and Newt didn't notice.  He keeps his back straight, his hands curled loosely at his sides.  He's not afraid.   

Credence lets Newt lead the way out of Woolworth, back out into the wet March afternoon, and doesn't look back.  He doesn't have to.  He can feel Graves' eyes on his back long after the door has closed behind him. 


	2. PART TWO

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So Black Sails killed me, and I'm updating this from beyond the grave, and my house is STILL full of pollen and what I think are cleverly-disguised dick jokes, but I'm not actually sure. I probably shouldn't have slept through my Romantic poetry course. 
> 
> Thanks for all of your feedback!! Next update should be on Sunday, assuming it takes me the usual time to get between Kentucky and home.

PART II 

 

Credence has always had strange dreams.  It's the Devil in him, Ma always said, the Devil and all the demons of hell, crouched between Credence's ears, whispering, scratching.   

Becoming a wizard has done many things for Credence, but it hasn't chased away his nightmares.   

Tonight, Credence dreams that he's running.  The ground is uneven and littered with rocks, and they tear at his paws, at his soft underbelly.  Black blood dots the earth.  Something is chasing him because something is always chasing him; something has been chasing him since he was a boy, and it's dark and full of teeth.   

Credence can feel it snapping at his heels.  If he stumbles, he's dead.   

Heavy darkness presses down on all sides.  It breathes.  Credence can't.  The air is too thick, too wet, too dark.  If he tries to breathe it it'll climb inside of him, choke him, and he'll fall to the teeth on his tail.   

Running in the darkness ahead of him is a mooncalf, and it shifts into a hippogriff before Credence's eyes, an awful twist of feathers and bone that makes his stomach heave and his heart beat faster with fear.    

"Run, Credence," the hippogriff advises, in a hollow voice that sounds like Newt, and its beak splits open into a bloodhound's muzzle and its wings fall away to reddish fur, and the stones cut into its paws.  "Run!"  it howls, in Tina's voice now, and the hungry darkness bears down on Credence from all sides.  Mad terror thunders in his chest, splintering his ribs, bowing his feet, and he can feel teeth closing around the base of his spine— 

_NO!_ Credence shouts, or wants to shout, and twists around to bite _back,_ because Credence is just as wild and just as frightening as anything that ever crawled out of the dark, and he's through with being a rabbit.  

His fangs close on empty air, and the darkness shudders, heaves.  Credence is on the ground, on his belly, panting into the dirt, and he doesn't know if he's a man or a rabbit or a wolf, and perched in a bone-white tree before him is a barn owl.  Its eyes are dark and depthless and its face is the moon on the sea, inconsistent and silvery.   

It is plucking feathers from its own breast with one ink-dark claw.  Black blood streaks its chest.  It's horrible to watch, rhythmic in its pain, and it doesn't take its dark eyes off Credence.   

"What are you doing?"  Credence asks it, because that's the sort of thing you ask your dreams.  There's a patch of shiny, moon-white skin on the owl's chest, horribly scarred, empty, and it grows as the owl tears its feathers out by the fistful.   

The owl opens its beak and Credence thinks for a moment that it's going to speak, like the hippogriff, like the bloodhound, but all it does is scream, and scream, and scream, and the feathers in its claws melt into dripping darkness, and green light fills its eyes— 

Credence wakes up, and his cheeks are wet.  His mouth tastes like pennies.  His fingertips ache.  Claws twitch between his knuckles.   

Credence breathes in deeply, letting cool mountain air fill him up, and quietly stands.  Above him, the stars are out in full force.  The first time Credence saw this many stars was out at sea, after Newt had rescued him, and if Credence looks up long enough he can almost imagine that he's back out on the water again, his feet planted on the deck of the ship, tracing the constellations.   

When he'd been very small, Credence had wanted to be a pirate.  His mother—his real mother, who'd had black hair and blue eyes and a laugh as warm as sunlight—had smiled and made toy ships sail through the air with a wave of her wand.   

It's been a long time since Credence thought of that.  Most of his memories of his mother he keeps locked away, hoarded deep in the safe parts of his skull where no one and nothing can pry them loose.  He's always been afraid that if he revisits them too often, they'll melt through his fingers.   

Ever since his visit to MACUSA, though, Credence finds himself thinking of his mother a lot.  He's only got a few memories of her.  He knows that she liked to laugh, and that she once made wooden ships swim through the air, and that she often sang a song without words that made Credence feel safe and loved.   

Credence's mother was a witch.  He doesn't know anything about his father, but his mother was a witch and she used magic.   

It's strange to think about.   

Credence knows he's not likely to get back to sleep.  He never does, after a nightmare, so he fishes his wand out from underneath the nest of blankets he's made, checks back over his shoulder to make sure that Newt is still sleeping next to the remains of their campfire, head pillowed on his case, and makes his way higher up the mountainside.   

Newt and Credence have been in the Rocky Mountains for three weeks, tracking Wampus cats.  According to Newt, the cats were once found all over America, and could be persuaded to guard Wizarding homes, but No-Majs kept confusing Wampus cats for mountain lions, and killed them for their skins or to protect their sheep.   

Now there are only a few Wampus left, most of them hiding among the rocks and windswept plains of Montana. They've gone all three weeks without a sighting, but Newt is hopeful that they're on the trail of a mated pair.   

Credence hopes so, too.  He'd like to see a Wampus cat.   

He climbs higher up the mountain's flank, grateful for the steep slope.  The exertion drives away his nightmares, reminds him that he's alive, awake, and he can climb mountains and cast spells and _fly,_ if he wants to.   

On their last day in New York, Newt and Tina's sister Queenie had taught Credence how to fly on a broom.  Credence can fly without one—and prefers to, if he's being honest—but it had been _fun_ to learn how to bank and turn.  Credence had chased the tiny golden Snitch through the sky while Queenie, Tina, and Newt jostled each other for a red ball they called a _Quaffle,_ and Queenie's No-Maj friend Jacob cheered them from below.   

According to Tina, Queenie wasn't supposed to talk to Jacob.  Jacob wasn't even supposed to know that Queenie and Tina _existed._ He'd been Oblivated, after Credence had nearly wrecked the city, and had been sent off to live without magic.   

Queenie likes Jacob, though—turns out _he_ was the 'special dessert' Tina'd been talking about at MACUSA—and she'd kept going by Jacob's bakery until Jacob had remembered enough about her to accept her invitation for dinner.   

Newt also likes Jacob, and Credence finds that he does too.  He's enjoyed his time out here in the mountains, but he's also looking forward to going back to New York in a few days to resupply and meet up with the Goldsteins.   

_And sleep in a real bed,_ Credence thinks.  Credence doesn't mind camping, in small doses, but he's lived his entire life in the city and being without all the noise makes him uneasy.  He does like that he can see the stars, though.   

Credence looks up again, watching the stars glitter, and realizes that he can hardly remember his nightmare.  The walk up the mountain has chased the worst of it away, and all that's left is a vague feeling of unease, prickling across his skin like an old scab.  Satisfied, Credence toes off his shoes and leaves his wand beside a tree.  Newt will be asleep for hours yet, and there's nobody else up here to see.  

Quietly, carefully, Credence unravels himself, lets himself melt like mist, like shadow, and goes up to fly between the stars.   

By the time dawn breaks over the peaks, Credence is back in his skin, wand tucked in his pants, frying breakfast over their rekindled fire, and Newt is none the wiser.   

 Their last week in the Rockies _does_ turn up a pair of Wampus cats, and by the time their train leaves for New York, Newt has befriended them both, named them Ernest and Linda, and promised to return in June to help the cats rear a litter.   

(Credence is pretty sure the Wampus have _no idea_ what Newt is saying to them—and they aren't particularly fond of Credence, so it's not like he can _ask_ —but Newt is practically bouncing as he chatters about the next book he's going to write, and how wonderful it will be to see new cubs in the den when they return.   

Credence is hardly going to crush his hopes and dreams.)  

From Montana, they take a train to Chicago, where there's enough civilization to connect to New York by the Floo Network.  One dizzying whirl through bright green fire later, Credence is stepping into Tina Goldstein's living room after Newt, sneezing, and comes face to face, again, with Percival Graves.   

Graves is sitting on the couch beside Tina, a file spread out across his knees, and his sleeves are pushed up to his elbows.  His hair is untidy.  But his shoulders are broad and his back is straight, and there's enough of Grindelwald's shadow in the line of his jaw that Credence locks up again, baring his teeth before he can help it.   

"Oh," Tina says, in a small, startled voice.  "You're early."   

The tension in the room thickens.  Newt shifts minutely in front of Credence and Queenie, across the room by the window, drops a mug.    

Credence and Graves stare at each other for a long, fragmented moment.  Credence's instincts are howling, struggling to twist out of his control.  He wants to fly, to fight, to wound, to— 

It's Graves who breaks the silence.  He stands up slowly, tucking his file underneath his arm, his eyes dark and unreadable, and summons his coat with a flick of his fingers.   

"Goldstein," he says.  His voice is quieter than Credence thought it would be, and hoarser.  This close Credence can see faint silvery scars on Graves' wrists and forearms.  One mars his hairline and another splits one of his eyebrows.  "I'll see you Monday. Thanks for the coffee, Queenie."  

"I can come in tomorrow," Tina says, looking between Credence and Graves.  "Really, I don't mind—"  

"You've been at the office for eight straight days," Graves interrupts.  "Take tomorrow off.  Andrews and Yakimoto can handle the Yaxley case for a few days.  If I see you before Monday, I'll turn you into a coat rack."  

Tina snorts.   

"He's not kidding, Teenie," Queenie warns, amused, and all of a sudden Credence's anger goes out of him, leaving embarrassment cringing in his belly.   

"You don't have to leave," he says, all in a rush.  Everyone stares at him, uncomprehending. Credence winces and makes himself slow down.  "You should—you should stay.  You were here first."   

Everybody holds very still.  But Graves is the only one who matters, right now.  He's the one Credence is scared of, is furious at, for no reason.  He's the one Grindelwald hurt, maybe almost as badly as Grindelwald hurt Credence.   

He's obviously Tina and Queenie's friend.  They're not uncomfortable or afraid to have him in their cluttered little dining room.  And if it's not Credence's fault that his Ma used to hit him, it's not Graves' fault that Grindelwald locked him up and stole his face.   

Determined now, Credence meets Graves' fierce, dark eyes.   

_I know you're not Grindelwald,_ he tries to say.  _I'm not afraid of you.  It's alright._   

Something flickers in Graves' eyes, too quick and too sharp for Credence to catch.  He doesn't put down his coat.  "I think," Graves says, slow and measured, and he's going to leave anyway. Credence can already feel his departure like a wind through tall, bent trees.   

"Oh, perfect! We'll have a family dinner!"  Queenie says, before Graves can finish, and everybody startles a little bit, caught out by Queenie's enthusiasm.  "I'm making roast beef in the kitchen, we've got plenty for five.  Mr. Graves, would you mind helping me peel potatoes?  I always get the spell wrong and miss a spud."  

Graves blinks.  This time he's the one who looks away, head canted to the side a little, confused.  This force of his attention shifts away, lifting up off of Credence's chest.  Very slowly, Graves drapes his coat over the back of the nearest chair.  "Potatoes," he says, sounding dubious.  "Alright?"  

Queenie claps, delighted, and all but drags Graves into the kitchen, out of sight.  She catches Credence's eye and winks, cheeks dimpling, and closes the door behind her.   

_She can read minds,_ Credence remembers, flushing bright red.  She'd—she'd heard everything Credence thought.  He has to swallow the urge to bury his face in his hands and groan.   

"If you want to leave, we can," Newt says quietly, touching Credence's shoulder.  His eyes are bright with concern.  "We'll be in town for a few days, we can always have dinner here tomorrow."  

"Mr. Graves won't mind," Tina adds.  "Really.  He's a bit of a recluse, he'd probably appreciate the opportunity to go skulk around the office or the library—"  

"I heard that, Goldstein," Graves calls from the kitchen, and it’s the plain irritation in his tone that makes up Credence's mind for him.   

"I want to stay," he says, firm.  "Mr. Graves isn't Grindelwald."   

Grindelwald had never sounded irritated.  Sweet, syrupy, goading, praising, all of those things, but never irritated, or tired, or annoyed.  Grindelwald hadn't sounded _human._ He'd sounded like the idea of a man, like a dream Credence had brought to life to save him from Mary Lou Barebone.  Credence had wanted to believe in Grindelwald because he'd been dying, and desperate, and lonely.   

But Credence isn't dying or desperate or even lonely anymore, not really. He's got Newt.  He's got Tina.  He's got Queenie and Jacob and Dougal the demiguise.  He's a _wizard._ He doesn't need to believe in fairytales anymore, and he doesn't need to be afraid.   

Credence nods, decided.  "I want to stay," he repeats.   

Newt shrugs, accepting that as easily as he accepts anything else.  Tina chews her lip, but she nods too.   

"Alright," she says, pitched low.  "He won't stay for long, anyway.  If you need to leave, though, just let me know and we'll fake a fire or something."  

"Aren't you a witch?"  Credence asks.  "Why would fire be a problem for you?"  And just like that, the worst of the tension is broken. 

In what seems like no time at all Queenie is bustling out of the kitchen, a parade of food floating before her.  There's no Jacob tonight, but if wizards aren't supposed to be friends with No-Majs and the Head of the Auror Department is staying over for dinner, Credence supposes that's for the best.   

Graves comes trailing after Queenie, his face carefully blank, and really, it's surprising that Credence could ever mistake him for Grindelwald.  Maybe at first glance there's some similarity, but the more Credence looks at Graves, the less of Grindelwald he sees.  It's not just the scars, either, or the hair, or the rolled-up shirt sleeves.   

Grindelwald had always felt, to Credence, like a thunderstorm.  Bright and sharp and flashing.  Even a glance from him made Credence feel lightning-struck.   

Graves feels like just a man.  Fierce, watchful, and Credence is sure that if pressed, this Mr. Graves lash out just as skillfully and as ferociously as Grindelwald, but he's still just a man.   

"So, Mr. Graves," Queenie says brightly, ushering all of the food down onto the table.  "Do you still have that nifty flower spell?  All I can conjure are petunias, and we need a centerpiece."   

Graves raises his good eyebrow, leans over, and taps an empty vase in the middle of the table with his wand, once, twice, and on the third tap a sprig of riotous yellow flowers blooms in the glass.  The petals are perfect and pale, and match Queenie's tress quite nicely.   

Queenie peers over Graves' shoulder and sighs.  "[Hazel](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fc/Flower%2C_Spike_winter_hazel_-_Flickr_-_nekonomania_%281%29.jpg)?"  she asks.  "This time of year?"  

Graves huffs, taps his wand against the vase again, and a bundle of tiny, fragile pink flowers appears.  "[Thrift](http://www.wildflowersofireland.net/image_uploads/flowers/Thrift-1.jpg)," he says.  "More seasonally appropriate, Miss Goldstein?"  

Queenie hums, satisfied.  "Perfect," she says.  " _Now_ we're ready to eat.  Dig in, everybody."  

The food smells too good for Credence to prolong any lingering awkwardness.  He does as he's told, settling down, Tina on his right and Newt at his left, and digs in with enthusiasm.  Everything's always delicious when Queenie Goldstein cooks, but Credence is on his second helping before he can stop himself, and planning on a third.   

Tina and Queenie soon pull him into a conversation about the magic he's learning.  Credence can handle brewing potions and caring for Newt's creatures, and a few days ago he managed to turn a teacup into a turtle, but Charms are still tricky.   

Behind him he hears Graves quietly ask Newt about his brother Theseus.  Newt answers with a question about Graves' greenhouse.  "Theseus never stops raving about it," Newt is saying.  "He tried to keep mandrakes for months after he last visited you, but he doesn't have the temperament to be a good gardener, I'm afraid."  

"All my mandrakes are dead," Graves says, dry.  Credence is careful not to look at him, but he notices that Graves is only drinking.  He hasn't touched his meal.  "On top of being a raving lunatic, Grindelwald's also a piss-poor gardener.  The only thing in my greenhouse that survived him is the Tentacula, and that's because it ate its way through the vegetable garden."  

"Are you replanting?  I grow what I can in my case, but I don't have room for a full apothecary. I have to order most things by owl, and it's always anyone's guess if the poor things will actually find me, with all of the traveling I do."  

"I'm still trying to find the full extent of the damage," Graves replies.  "The non-magical plants will come in again alright, they're hardy things for the most part, but everything else—" and then Credence loses the thread of the conversation to Tina's next volley of questions, to Queenie's rambling story about the time the Minister of France asked to marry her. 

Credence isn't stupid.  He knows what they're doing.  He even appreciates it, a little.  They are very gently keeping Credence and Graves apart from each other.  He's never really had _friends_ before, and what they're doing for him warms him up from the base of his stomach to the tips of his fingers.   

It isn't necessary, though, and Credence listens to Newt and Graves talking with one ear, waiting for an opening.  

"Ilvermorny has a fairly polite Whomping Willow, if you're ever in Massachusetts," Graves is saying.  "The weather's awful and it's been about a decade since I've been by to make sure it's behaving, but I haven't heard of it mauling anyone."  

"You went to Ilvermorny?"  Credence asks, cutting in neatly.  Four months ago, he wouldn't have had the nerve, but four months ago Credence was a different person, a cowardly person, and he's not ever going to be that person again.   

Even so, the sudden force of Graves' attention, of his fierce eyes, makes Credence's hands shake.  He hides them under the table.   

"Yes," Graves says, slowly.   

"What House were you in?"  

Graves hesitates, eyes flicking to Tina, and blinks.  "I chose Wampus," he finally says.  "Though I was offered Horned Serpent, too."   

Credence nods, trying to remember what he knows about Ilvermorny.  It's not much—Newt can talk for hours and hours about Hogwarts, but he doesn't know much about Ilvermorny, and Tina's reluctant to talk about her time at school.   

Wampus is the house of the heart, Credence remembers.  Horned Serpent is the house of the mind.   

"You were offered Horned Serpent?"  Queenie asks, head tilted a little.  "And you turned it down?  Why?" 

"Because Wampus is the better House," Tina says immediately, and Queenie huffs, knocking Tina's shoulder.   

"Because Seraphina picked Horned Serpent," Graves says, half-smiling.  "And even at eleven I lived to piss her off."   

Tina and Queenie both make understanding noises.  Credence doesn't really get it—he doesn't know who Seraphina is.  Graves' sister?  His wife?   

Credence doesn't see a ring on Graves' hand, and for some reason the idea of Graves with a wife doesn't feel right.   

_Grindelwald was the one who was deviant,_ Credence scolds himself, suddenly angry with himself, sick embarrassment rising hot in his chest. Really, that's when Credence should have _known_ that Grindelwald was too good to be true.  That he'd been kind and understanding, that he'd seen Credence as a person, not a sin, not an aberration, was one thing.  That he'd harbored the same kind of feelings towards another man that Credence himself did was quite another.   

_Does he know?_ Credence thought unhappily, his appetite gone.  _Does he know what Grindelwald offered me with his face?  What I wanted from him?_  

Queenie makes a wounded sound, and Credence turns to eye her, sharp and miserable.   

_Please don't read my mind,_ he thinks at her.  Her lips twist, but she doesn't say anything.   

"I'm surprised she hasn't killed you," Tina is saying, purposefully ignoring whatever's happening between Credence and Queenie.  "During the last election half the department bet on you running just because you could, and the other half bet on her having you assassinated."  

"We actually got along in '24," Graves says back, wry.  "She bought my cooperation with all of those tighter trade restrictions, and I bought hers with the lowered crime rate."  

"What's it like to have a friendship based on a mutually-beneficial political agenda?"   

"Fractious," Graves says, and Credence realizes that he's _amused._  

Grindelwald had never been amused, either.   

All this time, Credence's nightmares have had Graves' face.  But there's a _person_ underneath that face, a person who's flesh and blood and thought and feeling.  Grindelwald had been a monster.  A man in a mask.   

Graves isn't.  

And just like that, the last of Credence's uneasiness disappears.  He lets Tina steer Graves away from him, asking a question about some underground bloomslang smuggling ring, and finishes his dinner.  He tells Queenie that he likes her dress and listens to Newt talking about the Wampus cats they found in the Rocky Mountains.   

It feels _normal._ Well, as normal as Credence is ever going to feel.  He's a _wizard,_ sitting around a dinner table with other witches and wizards, and he hasn't felt normal all his life and Credence knows he'll probably never feel really, truly ordinary, but this is a start.  

When the last of the meal has been eaten and the dishes sent marching to the kitchen with a lazy flick of Queenie's wand, Graves is the first one to stand, rolling his shoulders.   

"Thanks for dinner, Queenie," he says.  "Goldstein, I meant what I said.  You're off 'til Monday."  

Tina pulls a face, but doesn't argue.   

"Mr. Graves, it was good to meet you," Newt says, standing too.  He reaches across the table and shakes Graves' hand.  "I'll tell Theseus you said hello, shall I?" 

"Please."  Graves' dark eyes flick over to Credence, then back to Newt.  "Mr. Scamander, Mr. Barebone.  It was good to put faces to names."  

"Likewise," says Newt.  Credence doesn't say anything—he doesn't know what _to_ say.  He's not—he's never been anyone fancy, anyone well-bred.  Ma hadn't had much manners or learning, and the only things she'd taught her children were cruelty and hatred.   

Graves summons his coat again, inclines his head at Tina and Queenie, and disappears with a turn of his heel and an impressive _crack._  

"Woah," Credence says, into the quiet.  "When do I get to learn how to do _that?_ "  

Queenie laughs.   

Newt and Credence stay over at the Goldstein place for the night, after helping with cleanup and pointedly not talking about dinner.  Queenie makes Credence hot cocoa and tells Newt, primly, that if he wants hot cocoa too, he has to earn it.  Newt, grumbling, disappears into his case for the night, and Credence follows him, feeling warm.  

The nightly routine inside of Newt's case is the same as it always is.  Newt and Credence split up and hand out everyone's evening meal.  Dougal climbs up on Credence's back, warm and solid, and chatters irritably at all of the creatures who are feeling unruly or rude.   

They're about ready to climb back up and go to bed when, from the top of the case, Credence hears a sharp knock.  

He cranes his head back and frowns.  

"Did you hear that?"  he calls across the case to Newt, who's got three Occamies wrapped around him and a fourth refusing to come out of the nest.  "Tina and Queenie would just come in, right?" 

"Go see who it is!"  Newt calls back.  One of the Occamies, tired of being manhandled, has sunk its teeth into Newt's hand.   

A thrill of nervousness shoots up Credence's spine, and he draws his wand even though he doesn't know any dueling magic.  A stick, he reasons, is better than nothing at all.   

Credence climbs back up the ladder and pushes the case open warily, ready to jump back down and fight if he has to.   

An eagle owl stares down at him, unimpressed.  Its eyes are red and its back and wings a soft, speckled grey.  One of its claws is raised, like it was just about to tap on the case again. 

Credence stares at it, utterly confused.   

The owl hoots at Credence imperiously, leg e

xtended, and clacks its beak at him when he doesn't move to grab the letter tied just below its knee.   

"Well?"  Newt calls from below.  "Who is it?" 

"It's an owl," Credence says.  The bird hoots at him again and shakes its leg, clearly impatient to be off.  Credence carefully unties the letter from its leg and scrounges around in his pockets.  The only thing he's got is a mooncalf pellet.  The owl takes one look at it, fluffs its feathers up in disgust, and swoops off, screeching angrily.   

Credence looks down at the letter.  It's made of heavy cream-colored paper, folded and sealed with red wax.  On the front, it reads, in spiky black ink:  

_Messrs. Scamander & Barebone_ 

_Scamander's Case_  

_Goldstein Residence_  

_New York, New York_  

"Well?"  asks Newt.  "What is it?  It's a bit late to get a letter."  

"I think," Credence says, breaking the seal with his thumb, "that it's an invitation."  

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! 
> 
> I'm @picqueries.tumblr.com if you want to say hi! I can also be reached via seance, because I'm genuinely dead over Black Sails. 
> 
> FLOWER MEANINGS, as per my gf, who Knows these things: 
> 
> Hazel: reconciliation, peace  
> Thrift: sympathy


	3. PART THREE

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So it did not take me the usual time to get back to Michigan from Kentucky, but I spent two wonderful days in Nashville making irresponsible choices, so it all evens out, I guess. 
> 
> Also, I apparently have a Thing for dances. I'm not sure what childhood influence that's from, but it's there. 
> 
> Enjoy! Next part should go up on Saturday/Sunday! 
> 
> Thank you so much for all your wonderful kudos and comments!

PART III 

 

Newt, to Credence's surprise, is not that hard to convince.  

"I actually like dances," Newt admits, tapping his wand against his loose tie and coaxing it into a neat bow.  "There's always something interesting to see."   

Over the last few months Credence has learned to translate what Newt says into what Newt means.  _Something interesting to see_ is Newt's way of saying that he's a shameless gossip, and likes to use respectable social gatherings to cultivate contacts in less respectable circles, but Credence doesn't bother pointing that out.   

"Will MACUSA be okay with me there?"  Credence asks.   

Newt tilts his head, considering.  "If the Head of the Auror Department invited you personally," he says slowly, "I don't imagine that many will disagree.  Mr. Graves' reputation is quite fearsome." 

Credence has reread the letter a dozen times since it arrived three days ago.  He has it memorized by now.  There's not much to it, really—just a polite greeting, an invitation to MACUSA's annual April Ball, _P. Graves_ written at the bottom in spiky, hurried letters, the round edges of the _P_ smeared a little, like the letter was folded up before the ink was completely dry.  

Credence can't figure it out.  He and Newt are _nobodies._ Credence more so than Newt, of course.  Newt's at least a respected author, a scholar rising in his field.  Credence is— 

Well.  Credence is nothing more than a shadow across MACUSA's door.  A reminder of _that mess with Grindelwald,_ of how close they all came to exposure and war.  Credence hasn't really _been_ to any parites, so he can't be entirely sure, but most people don't want someone like Credence showing up and reminding them all that, if Newt didn't happen to go everywhere with a zoo in the palm of his hand, the Wizarding world would again be at war.  

But Graves is the Head of the Auror Department, and he invited Credence himself.  It's there on the dresser in the Goldsteins' guest room, written in Graves' own hand.  

"It's not too late to decline," Newt says gently, catching onto the nerves Credence is trying very hard to hide.  "It's sure to be a big party.  No one will notice that we didn't attend.  Tina'd cover for us.  We can go to Central Park with Queenie and Jacob."  

 _Mr. Graves will notice,_ Credence doesn't say.  He's fairly sure that Graves notices almost as much as Credence himself does. 

"I want to go," Credence says, firm.  And he does, truly—he wants to see what a party in the Wizarding world is like.  He wants to be a part of it, to feel the magic in the air, to see all the strange and wonderful things that he's dreamed of for years and years.   

He's probably not going to get a chance like this again.  Graves is only being _polite_ with his offered invitation.  He's thanking Newt and Credence for allowing him to stay at the Goldsteins for dinner.  He's proving, once and for all, that he's not Gellert Grindelwald.  That's all this is.   

Credence spent most of his life too afraid to take any chances, and he was stuck with his Ma because of it.  He's through making _that_ mistake.  He wants to go.  

"Alright," Newt says.  "Whenever you're ready, then."  

Credence convinced Queenie to take him shopping, so for once he's wearing his own clothes and not a cast-off suit from the bottom of Newt's case.  The man in the Goldsteins' little mirror is not quite Credence Barebone—he looks healthier, maybe a little older, with longer hair and the starved, needy edges of him rounded down.  But Credence can still see glimpses of his old self there, all wide eyes and hunger, and he turns away.   

"Why April?"  he asks, as satisfied with the way he looks as he's ever going to be.  "Spring doesn't seem like a good season for dances."  

"It's tradition," Newt explains.  "All of the pureblooded families still start their season at the beginning of April, though I don't remember why, exactly.  Theseus was the one who paid attention when Mother went off on a story about her childhood.  I was usually too busy trying to climb up onto the hippogriffs."  

"Will there be a lot of... purebloods at the ball?"  Credence asks, nervous again.  His mother was a witch, but Credence is pretty sure he's not a pureblood.  

Newt smiles.  "No," he says.  "Blood status is, er, a bit different here in America.  About the only progressive thing MACUSA has going for it, if we're being honest.  The fact that we're not allowed to be friends with Muggles here is—" 

Credence lets Newt's familiar rant wash over him, calming his nerves.   

He doesn't want to be an embarrassment.  Credence is well aware that he's an orphaned bastard, that he's poorer than dirt, that he's an Obscurial.  Newt at least has a pureblood mother, a wizard father.  Credence has a mother who was a witch, and that's it.  He doesn't have a bloodline, a history.   

 _Stop worrying about it,_ he tells himself, shaking the thought away.  Either the party is going to go well, or it isn't.  There's not much Credence can do about it except stay out of the way and avoid talking to anyone who looks too important, and those are the skills he's had his whole life.   

It's going to be fine.  

Newt's going to be there, and Tina's goingt o be there, and— 

 _It's going to be fine,_ Credence repeats to himself, purposefully not thinking about Graves.  _You'll be fine._  

"Ready?"  Newt asks, kindly.  He has—after a muffled argument with Tina in the dead of night, when they thought Credence was asleep—agreed to leave his case at the flat, though it's warded so thoroughly that anyone who comes within ten feet of it will get blown out into the street.  Newt looks strange without the case hanging off one of his hands, lopsided, and Credence smiles.   

"Ready," he says, and takes Newt's offered arm.   

Newt calls this _Side-Along_ _Apparition_ _,_ and it is probably the worst experience Credence has ever had, and he can turn into a cloud.  His ears pop and his chest squeezes and panic rises behind his eyes, darkness whirling around him, and then— 

And then Newt and Credence are stumbling out into an alley behind Woolworth, safe from prying eyes, as the sun sets over the city.  

Credence coughs and lets go of Newt, shaking his head slowly, trying to stop the feeling of pitching and rolling.  

"I hate doing that," he mutters.   

Newt hums sympathetically.  "It really is better when you can Apparate on your own," he says.  "Though it's never quite comfortable.  I much prefer traveling by the Floo or by broom, but." He gestures at the city around them with a shrug.  

"Shall we?"  he says.  

Nerves flutter in Credence's belly, but he nods.   

Newt leads the way, rounding the corner out into the street proper and ambling towards Woolworth's front door.  The building looks deserted, looks like most of its occupants have gone home for the night, but there's still a doorman, and he doesn't even ask to see an invitation; he just holds the door open, and Credence follows Newt through.   

Magic, Credence decides, is a wonderful, wonderful thing.  

The bustling workplace he visited weeks ago with Newt has been transformed into—into something.  Credence doesn't even have the words he needs to describe what it's like.  Everything is gilt and glittering and radiant, MACUSA's sever grey and black colors lost to warm creams and whites and golds.  Great tapestries hang from ceiling to floor and hundreds of candles blaze merrily in midair, floating above the crowd.  

The bronze eagles have been buffed to a warm shine and they swoop over the party lazily, crowns of flowers wrapped around their heads and draped over their wings.  Vases full of bright yellow and pale blue and warm pink flowers dot the tables.  People in flashy, glittering dresses and crisp suits dance together underneath tall arches wrapped in roses, and house elves bustle through the crowd carrying trays of wine and giggle water.  

Music filters down from somewhere high above, wild trumpets, cheerful saxophones, a drum beat that makes Credence's heart quicken in his chest, and over everything magic hangs like a shining veil, flashing and sparkling in tempo.  

Credence must stop and stare for longer than he should, because someone knocks into his shoulder from behind and he turns, defensive, to find a young couple clinging to each other, laughing and whispering.  

"Sorry, fella," one of them says, already being dragged into the crowd by his companion.  "Enjoy the party!" 

Credence stares after him, bemused.   

Newt nudges his shoulder, grinning.  "See?"  he says.  "Nothing to worry about.  Come on.  I think I see Tina over by the champagne fountain."  

"Champagne _fountain?_ " Credence asks, and trails after Newt anyway.  

They do find Tina by the champagne fountain, talking to a pretty dark-haired young woman who introduces herself as Ramona Polanco, Tina's partner.  Ramona doesn't bat an eye when Tina introduces Newt and Credence, just shakes their hands and wanders off, lighting a cigarette with the tip of her wand.   

Tina grins at Credence, openly delighted.  "So," she says, gesturing at all of MACUSA, "what do you think?" 

Credence grins back.  

Most of the rest of the evening is given over to talking and watching.  Tina and Newt know a good number of the people at the party—Tina knows all the Aurors, the house elves, and the clerical staff, and Newt knows all the diplomats, though many of them look suitably nervous when Newt says hello—and make sure that Credence meets them all.   

No one, not a single witch or wizard, shakes Credence's hand and connects him to Grindelwald's mess in December.  It's like no one knows, or cares to know.  People shake Credence's hand, ask him about what he's learning, where he's traveled to, what strange things he's seen, and don't bring up the fact that he's the one who almost exposed them all once.  

It is, Credence decides, very... nice.   

He's been at the April Ball for three or four hours and he's on his third or fourth glass of champagne, feeling warm and dizzy with it, when Credence notices that he's lost track of Newt and Tina. 

He's on the other side of the ballroom from where he started, too, and there's a handsome wizard touching his elbow, gently, offering him another drink.  The wizard is a little older than Newt, just beginning to show grey at his temples, and he's got a kind, open face and a pale pink rose threaded through the buttonhole of his suit jacket.  

Credence takes the drink and frowns.   

He doesn't have a rose.   

The older wizard pats him on the elbow and ambles off, and Credence downs his drink in one go, just because he can.  _Wizarding champagne is very good,_ Credence thinks, and looks around.   

Now that he's noticed, nearly everyone in the room has a flower on their person.  Witches wear their flowers around their wrists.  Men have roses and carnations at their breasts.  Even the house elves have flowers perched atop their heads or stuck in the creases of their clothes.   

Credence brushes a thumb across his own chest, thinking.   

He mastered the Summoning Charm a few days ago.  Surely it wouldn't be that hard to sneak a rose off one of the arches for himself.  He'd just have to make sure that nobody saw him.  

Feeling clever, Credence slips to the edge of the crowd, avoiding arms and legs, and looks around for a shadowy corner to hide himself in while he steals—borrows—his rose.   

He's just found a spot when, out of the corner of his eye, he sees the President of MACUSA and Percival Graves.  

Seeing the President makes all of Credence's happy dizziness disappear.  He freezes, caught between the desire to stand completely still and hope the President doesn't see him and the desire to turn into shadows and fly far, far away.   

 _Don't see me,_ he thinks, sick fear replacing the liquor-warmth in his belly.  He doesn't know if he's hoping that the President doesn't see him, or if Graves doesn't see him.  On one hand, the President is the one who ordered all the Aurors to fire on Credence.  She'd thrown her own spells into the mix and they had torn Credence apart like wet paper.   

But on the other Graves is Grindelwald, and he isn't but he _is._ Credence's instinctive panic can't tell the two apart.   

The President and Graves sweep past Credence without even looking up; their heads are bent low together and they're talking swiftly, fiercely.  The President jerks her chin to make a point and Graves throws his hands out, fingers splayed.   

It looks like they're arguing.   

Graves and the President continue all the way out of the ballroom, leaving Credence sweaty and pale and panicked.   

Shame rushes in and fills up the spaces left by his earlier happiness.  Graves _invited_ Credence here.  The President has agreed not to kill him.  Credence doesn't need to hide from them like he's been out past his curfew and they're waiting at home on the stairs.   

And Graves had looked—upset.  Not angry, Credence knows what anger looks like on his face, but hurt.  He did Credence a kindness by inviting him to this party.  He's let Credence take one more step into the Wizarding world.  He is—not a friend, but a friend of a friend.   

Credence watches the President and Mr. Graves disappear down a darkened hallway, whispering furiously to each other, and pads after them without stopping to think about what a bad idea it is.  

He's good at not being seen.  Credence sticks to the shadows, his blood buzzing, and listens.  He can still hear the party back behind him, music, laughter, but just above all of that he can hear Graves snarl a question. He can’t see the pair, but he doesn’t need to; Credence draws up, shoulder pressed against the wall, and listens.   

"—know what you're doing," the President says, and her voice is lovelier than Credence thought it would be, rich and sure.   

"When do I ever know what I'm doing?"  Graves returns, a bite in his tone Credence has never heard before.  "Half of my job is improvisation."  

"Half _my_ job seems to be cleaning up your messes," the President says.  "You do know the Crackstones are out for your blood, don't you? Theodore was a good Auror and you fired him without cause—" 

"Theodore Crackstone is at best a complete idiot and at worst a sympathizer," Graves growls.  Something in his voice makes the hairs on the back of Credence's neck stand on end.  "I had plenty of cause.  Six months of it, in fact."  

"Regardless, Peregrine Crackstone has half of Congress up in arms and calling for your resignation.  I can't hold them back much longer, and you know it.  In two years, I'm not going to be the President and you'll be on your own."  

"I don't need your protection," Graves says.  

"Of course you don’t," the President hisses.  "Percy Graves doesn't need _anyone,_ isn't that right?  You've got to do everything on your oown.  Ever since your brother—" 

"Do not," Graves says, quietly, "bring him into this."  

The President sighs.  "You keep pushing your allies away," she says.  "The Crackstones are not a family to make an enemy of.  Percy, you _know_ this.  The Crackstones, the Bishop-Malfoys, the Howes, the Proctors, they _run_ Congress, and if they decide they want to be rid of you, they'll make sure it happens."  

Credence strains to listen, but Graves doesn't respond, or if he does he says it too quietly to hear. 

"My term is up in two years," the President says.  "And then you'll be alone.  The Crackstones and their cronies don't like _me_ either, and once I'm out of office, they'll set about trying to undo everything I've—everything we've—done."   

Graves' reply is too low and too intimate to hear, and Credence pulls away, forces himself to walk back down the hallway to the party.  The noise and light hit him like a switch being thrown, leaving Credence feeling dazed and shaky.   

He doesn't know why he stayed to eavesdrop.  If the President had caught him— 

Credence can't help but feel like he was intruding, too.  The President and Graves are clearly friends, or used to be friends.  The President's trying to protect Graves from powerful people.  That's not any of Credence's business.  He’d wanted to—to help, maybe, or to prove to himself that he wasn’t afraid, but all Credence did was stick his nose where it didn’t belong.    

He sweeps a look over the party, spotting Newt and Tina tucked into a corner, talking quietly together, their bodies bracketing each other, and Credence again looks away, feeling like he's intruding.  A wave of loneliness rises in his chest, a wide dark yawn that presses against his ribs, his spine, up into his throat.   

 _I'm not alone,_ Credence tells himself.  He's standing in a ballroom surrounded by hundreds and hundreds of people, _his_ people, witches and wizards.  Credence is a part of something now, something bigger than his Ma's hateful church, something better than a grey dusty orphanage.   

He's not alone.  

 _But I am._  

Newt once called Credence _singular._ He's the only Obscurial to live to be twenty-four.  He’s the only person to survive a death plow from the President of MACUSA herself.  He's one of the only wizards to ever be overlooked by Ilvermorny, one of only a few to escape Grindelwald with his life, one of a handful of children to be raised by a No-Maj and allowed into the Wizarding world despite it.  

Credence sighs, tries to push away the gloomy thoughts, and skirts the edges of the dancing crowd.  Nobody pays him any mind.  More than half of the guests are drunk and happy, stumbling over each other, falling into each other's arms, magic flickering at their heels, their hands.  A short, bald man leaps into the fountain of champagne.  His friends turn him into a duck, laughing so hard their eyes are streaming.   

A young woman who can't be that much older than Credence is crying underneath an arch of roses, turning away every time another young woman tries to touch her shoulders.  Credence watches a pair of house elves hide behind a table, snap their fingers, and turn a portly wizard's sandwich into a shiny beetle.  

Finally, Credence finds a quiet corner of the ballroom and folds himself into it to watch the party.  The music thunders in his heart and he thinks, again, of toy ships sailing through the sky.  

"You've got the right idea," Mr. Graves says, and suddenly he's right in front of Credence, perfect in his pressed suit, his scarred face as watchful and as still as Credence has ever seen him.  

Credence startles, just a little.  

Graves smiles crookedly.  "Forgive me," he says.  "I didn't mean to startle you.  I saw you over here and figured you're probably the last person in this room who'd try and make me dance."  

"I, uh," Credence says, caught flat-footed.  He thinks that Graves might have just made a _joke,_ but Credence was too lost in thought to catch it properly.  "You don't like dancing?"  

"Two left feet," Graves explains.  "And no head for rhythm, unfortunately."  

"Oh," says Credence, awkwardly.  Graves' eyes flicker, and he steps back like he's going to leave.  

Despite the perfect creases of his suit, despite his straight shoulders, Graves looks _tired._ And he invited Credence here.  Credence is sick with melancholy now, but he _was_ happy not too long ago, and Graves made that happen, so the least Credence can do is be kind.  

Graves is nothing to be afraid of.  And if Credence keeps telling himself that, maybe soon it will be true.  

"What kind of flower is that?" Credence asks, nodding at the spiky red plant tucked into Graves' buttonhole.  "No one else is wearing one like it."  

"This?  It's called [aloe](https://maxpull-gdvuch3veo.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/aloe-flower.jpg)," Graves says.  "It's—a desert plant.  Not many in New York would think to grow it." 

"But you do?" 

"But I do," Graves says.  "Or I did.  My greenhouse isn't very green at the moment.  I had to conjure this one from memory."  

Credence is struck by the sudden urge to reach out and touch the little plant's edges, to see if it's as sharp as it looks.  "Newt and I didn't know about the flowers," he says, gesturing at his own lack of one.  

Graves is quiet for a moment and then he says, "May I?"  The question is reflected in his dark, depthless eyes, and Credence, hesitant, determined, nods.   

Graves snaps his fingers, and a bright yellow sunflower bloom in thin air.  

Credence can't help but stare as Graves catches it and offers it to him, stem first.  Credence takes the flower and is strangely surprised to find out that it's real and solid in his hand.  

"How did you do that?" He demands, amazed.  "You didn't even use a wand."  

Graves looks pleased despite himself.  "I can only do it with plants, I'm afraid," he says.  "I've a bit of a green thumb."  

"You don’t need a spell?" 

Graves shrugs.  "Magic is mostly _intent,"_ he explains.  "Spells and wands help focus that intent, but if your will is strong enough you can make magic do nearly anything you want, wand or no."  

"I can't make magic do much even with a wand," Credence says, threading the stem of the [sunflower](http://demandware.edgesuite.net/sits_pod32/dw/image/v2/BBBW_PRD/on/demandware.static/-/Sites-jss-master/default/dw9392f52b/images/products/flowers/1815_01_sunnysmile.jpg?sw=280&cx=302&cy=0&cw=1196&ch=1196) into the buttonhole of his suit.  He likes the color of it, the cheerful brightness, even if most other wizards are wearing carnations or roses.  

"It takes practice."  Graves half-smiles, angles his body so that Credence doesn't feel caged in between Graves and the rest of the crowd.  Or at least that's why Credence _thinks_ he does it.  Graves makes the motion look causal, unstudied, but Credence has spent his entire life watching other people, and he can tell when someone's movements are deliberate.  

Credence thinks that everything about Mr. Graves is deliberate.  Even the kindness of conjuring Credence a sunflower.  

Credence narrows his eyes, thoughtful.  _What,_ he can't help but think, _is Mr. Graves trying to do?_ Is he trying to put more distance between himself and Grindelwald?  Is he trying to reassure Credence? 

"That's what Newt says," Credence replies, watching Graves carefully, curiously.  "What do you mean, magic is intent?  If you don't mind me asking," he adds hastily, not wanting to seem overeager or impolite.  

But Graves just blinks, considering, and says slowly, "Magic does what you think it should do.  The experience of the witch or wizard matters, yes, as does their person power, but what _really_ matters when you're casting a spell is will.  Want."  

 _Need,_ Credence hears in the spaces between Graves' words, remembering Grindelwald across the gaps of a ruined house, remembering the need to hurt him, to draw blood, to make him and everyone else burn for what they'd done.  

"Will," Credence repeats.  

Graves inclines his head, and with a twist of his fingers he brings a tumbler of dark amber liquid sailing gently into his hand.  Graves offers Credence the summoned glass, and brings another drifting over for himself.   

Cautiously, impressed by the show of magic and determined to hide it, Credence takes the glass and drinks.  It _burns_ ; Credence's eyes water and his throat stings.  He coughs and pulls a face.  

"Ugh," he says.  "What is this?"  

Graves smiles.  Properly smiles, quick and delighted, one cheek creasing, and Credence's heart stumbles so violently against his ribs that he nearly drops his glass.  

"It's firewhisky," Graves says, and his voice is deep and rich with amusement.  He raises his own glass a little, a small, private toast, and downs it, not even wincing at the burn. 

"Mr. Barebone," he murmurs, like he did that night at Tina and Queenie's, and Credence is suddenly aware of their little conversation coming to an end.   

He doesn't want it to end.  

"Do you know Newt's brother?"  Credence asks, because it's the safest thing he can think of without saying something utterly stupid, like _Nice weather we're having_ or _Sorry about your fight with the President_.  Credence clutches his glass and takes another sip of firewhisky, slower this time.  It still burns, but at the end of it there's a note of sweetness, and it warms Credence's belly.   

"Theseus?  I do," Graves says, bringing his attention back to bear.  "We fought in the war together."  

Everybody, it seems, fought in the war.  Credence was too young to fight by a few years, but Newt fought, and Jacob fought, and Tina fought.  

"What was it like?"  Credence asks.  "For wizards, I mean?  I didn't know wizards fought in the war.  It was started by No-Majs, wasn't it?"  

"There were some wizards who saw the No-Majs' war as an opportunity," Graves says quietly.  "For power, for control.  Who used the war to break our laws, to hurt both our kind and theirs."  

"Grindelwald," Credence guesses.   

"And others like him," says Graves.  "Though Grindelwald's the worst of the lot."  

"What was it like?"  Credence asks again.  

Graves is quiet for a long minute, but CRedence doesn't think it's an irritated silence, or an angry one.  It feels _watchful,_ almost, careful, like Graves isn't sure how to speak and is struggling to find the right words.   

"It was a waste," he finally says, and the corner of his mouth crooks up in a bitter half-smile.  "Of our lives, and theirs."  

"You don't like to fight?"  

"I love to fight," Graves says.  "But what we did during the war wasn't fighting.  It was—" And Graves cuts himself off with a grimace.  He shrugs, apologetic.  "Hard to describe," he says.  

Credence knows better than to push.  "I tried to enlist twice," he offers, to repay Graves for his honesty.  "But the first time I was too small and the enlisters figured I was younger than I said, and the second time the war was nearly over."  

"Well," Graves says, meditative, "having an Obscurial on our side would have certainly made things more interesting.  The last few months of the war were just mud, shit, and more mud."  

Startled, Credence laughs.  "I didn't have any control over it back then," Credence says. "I wouldn't have been much use."  

"All Theseus did was lie around and complain about the cold," Graves says, "so you would have been in good company, at least."  

Credence knows that's not true.  Newt's brother Theseus, who Credence has only met once, is something of a war hero.  Theseus keeps a flat in London, and Newt and Credence stayed with him for a few days.  His flat had been fuul of dead plants and moving pictures and medals shoved hastily into drawers, left to gather dust.  Theseus had a lot of medals; he'd been a member of the Third Airborne Division, fighting on broomstick thousands of feet up in the air, and had been _good_ at it.   

Theseus had only stopped by the flat to see Newt for a handful of minutes on their last day in London, and nothing about him had been particularly fierce or heroic.  Theseus is taller than Newt, more broad, and much less gentle.  He'd been loud, forceful, a little overbearing.  Kind enough, and he plainly adored Newt, but not a person Credence imagines he'd like much.  

Graves calls Theseus lazy with affection, though.  They're friends.  Credence wonders briefly what Graves did, in the war.  He'll have to ask Tina.  Somehow he doesn't think that Graves was a part of Third Airborne like Theseus.    

It takes Credence a moment, but there's a warmth spreading in his chest that has nothing to do with the firewhisky.  Graves is—he's not at all the person Credence thought he was.  Credence knows that this little bit of Graves he's seeing, this affection for Theseus, this kindness towards a stranger, is only a sliver of Graves.  Credence had heard anger, heard pettiness, when he'd overheard Graves and the President arguing.  Half the Wizarding world is terrified of Graves and the other half doesn't seem to like him much.  

(And there has to be enough of Grindelwald in Graves that Grindelwald could pretend to be him.  There has to be.  Credence hasn't seen it, but he knows it's there.  He's not thinking about it, not really, but the recognition is buried in the back of his mind, wrapped in shadow.)  

But still.  Credence hasn't felt this at ease since before Graves' owl delivered the invitation.  Graves isn't afraid of Credence, and Credence isn't afraid of Graves, and Credence feels just a little bit less alone standing here with him.   

It's a strange, frightening feeling, dizzy and confused, and if Credence was less drunk he'd be running for the door, but the firewhisky's just enough to keep him rooted.   

The moment stretches on for a few more heartbeats, calm and easy, the music above them soaring, the whisky warm at the bottom of Credence's chest, and then Graves peers down into his own empty glass, sighs, and considers Credence, head canted to the side.  

"You'd best get back to Mr. Scamander," Graves says, dryly.  "I think if he keeps looking at me like that, he's going to start an international incident."  

Credence cranes his head around, and sure enough there's Newt by the punch table, openly glaring at Graves over the heads of everyone else in the ballroom.  Tina's by his elbow, too short to get a proper look, but Credence doesn't doubt that she's glaring just as fiercely.  

Credence sighs.  "Sorry," he says, not sure why he's apologizing and suddenly shy with it.  "They're... just worried, is all."  

Graves waves his apology off, his face smoothing back into a polite, unreadable mask.  Credence's stomach twists unhappily, and he doesn't know why.  "They're looking out for you," Graves says.  "Goldstein's good like that.  I don't know much about your Mr. Scamander, but if he's anything like Theseus he's a good friend to have."  

"He is," Credence says, reaching for words he can't find, can't describe.   

Graves offers him another crooked half-smile, and holds out his hand.  "Mr. Barebone," he murmurs.  

Credence takes his hand cautiously.  _Don't compare him to Grindelwald,_ he tells himself, sternly, and does it anyway.  Graves' grip is warm and strong, but not overwhelming.  There are callouses on his fingertips that Grindelwald didn't have.  Graves' touch is professional, polite, and he doesn't let the handshake last too long, doesn't let it turn from polite to intimate, tender.  

He lets go, inclines his head, and leaves Credence alone.  

Credence makes himself look away, back across the ballroom at Newt and Tina.  Slowly, he begins to make his way back to them, his thoughts whirling, his magic straining underneath his skin.  

Mr. Graves is nothing like Grindelwald, but the heat of his touch lingers all the same.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Am I putting all of my bizarre tiny headcanons into this verse? Yes. 
> 
> FLOWER MEANINGS: 
> 
> Aloe: Grief, sorrow (Dramatic, Graves?)  
> Dwarf sunflower: Admiration, gratitude. According to Liz a tall sunflower would signify pride or appreciation. I didn't even know there were more than one kind of sunflower.

**Author's Note:**

> This fic IS finished! Learned my lesson from the fae 'verse. The next part will go up probably Friday. I'm midway through the last season of Black Sails, so whenever I recover enough from that to edit. 
> 
> Thanks for reading! 
> 
> I'm @picqueries.tumblr.com (sometimes) if ya wanna say hi!


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